I consider anything beyond High School Higher Education. That includes trade school, formal apprenticeship, and anything that requires a license. When I graduated high school in 1965, perhaps 1/4th of my peer group went on to college. The remainder entered a trade and/or worked toward a license.
College degrees today are far more expensive than they were in my day. Getting a college education today is like buying a house except that while you get the mortgage, you get no roof or walls. Susan and I experienced that in Medical School but not in college or graduate school. So it goes.
I remember sitting in my hair stylist’s chair one day some years ago. She was telling me about her boyfriend who was a PhD physicist. It seems that he looked down on her because he had an advanced degree in a technical field, and she had nothing more than a license as a cosmetologist. It turns out that she was bringing home twice as much money as he was. That’s not particularly surprising. There are probably more millionaire licensed folks who own their own businesses than there are millionaire college graduates.
I’m thinking about this topic today because I read an item in today’s Axios Markets about loans refused to college and non-college educated adults. It turns out that at any income stratum, college educated folks are more likely to get their loan requests approved. The item that I was reading noted that in the 1960’s, 1/4 members of Congress had no college degree. Now, it is 1/25.
So, I had to check on Lauren Boebert and George Santos, of course. Not surprisingly, their highest academic achievement is a GED. On the other hand, I was surprised to learn that Margorie Taylor Greene has an MBA! I suppose that college can address ignorance up to a point, but it doesn’t do squat for stupidity.